Friday, 17 August 2012

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night...

It
was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in sheets, and ran in
torrents down the streets of the City; and the wind blew gusts of it
against the walls of the great buildings that reached upwards towards
the unseen stars.

********************

High
in an upper storey of one such building, in his secret laboratory, Herr
Doktor Professor Viktor von Fränkenstein, known to one and all formally
as the Reanimator and informally as the Mad Scientist, toiled alone
over the Greatest Experiment the human mind had yet conceived.
Feverishly, muttering formulae under his breath, he attached green and
brown and blue wires to the Creature he had constructed after twenty
years of ceaseless toil and effort. Every once in a while he would step
back and consult a thick book of notes, and return again to the table on
which the Creature lay, and adjust a wire or change the position of a
clamp.

Outside, the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled, and
rain whipped the windows of the laboratory till they vibrated from the
strain, but the Doktor Professor paid no attention to it; caught up in
the excitement of his Quest, he was, in fact, unaware of anything at the
moment but what lay before him.

“Now,” he muttered to nobody in
particular, “haff I the knowledge, of vhether I successful am. Now,
after all these years, und nobody shall again at me laugh.” Shaking with
excitement and fever, he tottered away from the long table and to the
tall console studded with dials and buttons which stood in a corner. His
liver-spotted hand trembling, he began twiddling knobs. Little red and
purple lights began to run up and down the console in fascinating
patterns.

“Now then,” he said to himself, “I vill the last lefer
pull, und my thoughts correct proved shall be.” Turning, he reached for
the metal stick with the knob at the end.

*********************

Underneath
the City, the sewers rose from the water rushing down the drains. The
volume of water coming down was far greater than the amount the sewers
could clear, and the level rose higher and higher until the flood neared
the ceiling of the tunnels.

If there had been human eyes to
watch, and had there been light enough to see, they would have perhaps
noticed a different stirring in the turbid flow, as though great bodies,
bleached of pigment, stirred their armour-plated hides and opened
immense toothy jaws. Perhaps a stray gleam of phosphorescence would have
revealed glowing red eyes set in a long head, and a tapering snout
would break the surface, lashing sideways in a fury of conical teeth.

Out of the sewers, their ancient home, driven to desperation by the inundation, the alligators were coming.

The World of Man would know their wrath.

*******************************

The
Girl ran through the streets, her midnight-black hair spilling over her
shoulders, the rain plastering her clothes to her body. She turned down
a side street, pausing momentarily to listen for pursuit, but over the
constant rumble of thunder and the rain and wind she could hear
nothing. About to sprint off again, she swayed helplessly as terror and
exhaustion assailed her delicate senses.

“Oh,” she cried despairingly, “is there no brave gentleman willing to aid a poor damsel in distress?”

And
out of the shadows drove the Hero, at the wheel of his white car, his
giant frame clad in breastplates and greaves of muscle, his noble head
held high. With an expertise comparable to that of a race car driver, he
drew up to the kerb in a sheet of spray. Opening the door, he leaned
out and adjusted his debonair fedora. “Can I be of assistance to a
lovely lady?” he asked in his deep, deep voice, with a brilliant smile
flashing from his handsome face.

“Oh, if only you would!” said the Girl, and fell fainting into his iron-hard arms.

***************************

A boy in a plastic raincoat rode his bicycle down the street, splashing through puddles and laughing.

*****************************

And, high above the City, great electric charges were forming in the bosom of a cloud.

A bolt of lightning like one seldom seen was readying itself.

Electrons shifted and formed temporary alliances, and the earth and air flinched as they prepared for the blow.

A gigantic electric engine prepared itself.

Like a sword plunging into the heart of the world, the lightning struck.

********************************

Herr
Doktor Professor Viktor von Fränkenstein reached out for the lever and
swung it sharply into place, closing the contact. Arcs of electric light
flashed out from electrodes set around the lab and played over the
recumbent form of the Creature. The very air shifted and roiled over the
table, and the Creature was wrapped in an eerie blue glow. Slowly, very
slowly, as though heavy weights were attached to its limbs, the
Creature stirred and began to sit up.

“Ja, ja, ja,” crooned the
Herr Doktor Professor. “Get up and to me come, und ve vill you to the
vorld show.” He cackled. “Und all along haff I known, that I always
right am.”

Slowly, the Creature stood up and walked ponderously
over to the Herr Doktor. It stood looking down at him from its three
metres, flexing its immense limbs. It reared back its head and let out
an unearthly howl.

And then it fell forward limply on him, the weight of it breaking his neck instantly.

The red and purple lights continued to glow.

*********************************

Out on the outskirts of the
City, the Hero stopped the car and looked at the Girl. “Well,” he said,
“here we are, then. All on our lonesome.”

“You saved me,” sobbed
the Girl, throwing her slender arms round his neck and pressing her lips
to his in a passionate kiss. “I can never pay off the debt I owe you.”

“Oh,
I don’t know about that,” said the Hero. He dragged her out of the car,
stripped her naked and raped her, and when he was done he strangled her
and threw her body into an overflowing ditch.

Then he drove off, whistling merrily.

****************************

The alligators emerged from the
sewer. One saw the boy on his bicycle, and knocked him down with a blow
of its tail, and ate him still alive and kicking. But it left the
raincoat, since one normally doesn’t eat the wrapper in which one’s
treats come packaged.

Then the alligators swarmed over the City, and ate everyone they could find. Only the Hero, still whistling, escaped.

*********************************

It was a dark and stormy night, and on nights like this, even the gods are sleeping.

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